Family

Road Trip!

"All packed?" Marco said as he watched Jean shove his clothes into his bag as hard as he could, desperately trying to fit everything he needed in one bag. "You realize my parents have a washing machine, right?"

"Can't be," Jean gave the top another push, "too prepared."

"Well, if you can be too prepared, I'm pretty sure you'd be at the moment." Jean grunted in response and finally zipped the bag closed. He and Emily just had one large bag to themselves, and it was chock full of all sorts of unnecessary items, like an extra stick of deodorant, extra toothbrushes, things like that. Although, Jean had insisted on bringing his sketchbook and art supplies, and that took up quite a bit of space. Marco couldn’t argue with him there, though.

"Alright, I'm ready now," Jean announced, lugging his suitcase off the bed and into the hallway.

"Finally," Marco muttered jokingly. So that Jean could hear him he added, "Go get Emily while I put these in the car." Jean nodded obediently and walked to Emily's room as Marco tugged the two bags out the door and into the trunk of his car: a small, fairly new sedan that his parents had given him as a graduation present. He closed the trunk and was about to go back inside when Emily and Jean opened the door before him.

"Ready?" he asked, and Jean nodded, leading Emily out to the car.

Marco went inside, double checked that he had everything he needed, and locked the door after closing it one last time before they left. He'd only been living there for a month or so but it already felt like a place he could come home to. It was a nice feeling, Marco decided. He got in the  car and entered his parents' address into the satellite navigation system, allowing it to annoyingly shout directions at him as he pulled out into the road.

It wasn't an extraordinarily long drive; only an hour and a half, and Marco had been on much longer trips before (like to see the huge park in Wall Sina, a multiple day trip when driving. It was exceptionally less pleasant than the trips he used to take with his parents and older brother, though, because Emily just could not stop whining the entire ride. She had stayed up late the night before, so Jean and Marco had figured that she would sleep the ride through. That, however, was quickly disproven, as the minor lack of sleep had only made her grumpy and cranky rather than sleepy.

"I need to use the bathroom!" Emily suddenly whined halfway through their drive, just as the two up front were beginning to think she was finally calming down. Marco sighed.

"It's been an hour and she's had to go three times now," he said, annoyed. "How exactly is that possible when she hasn't even drunk an entire bottle of water yet?

"We should still pull into the next exit," Jean reasoned after signing Emily to wait a few minutes. "She may be annoying but it's better than her peeing on your back seat." Marco shrugged in response and signaled his blinker, finding the nearest place that probably has clean bathrooms and pulling into that. It turned out to be a Sheetz.

“Oh, not here,” Jean groaned.

“Why not?” Marco asked, putting the car into park.

“I was here once before,” he said. “My family went on a little trip and I can’t even remember where. All I know is that we stopped at a Sheetz and, well….” Jean grimaced. “You could say I got the ‘Sheetz.’”

Marco burst into laughter, leaning over and resting his head on the steering wheel while still giggling uncontrollably. Jean only sat there staring at his boyfriend awkwardly, because it really wasn't that funny (in his opinion). Maybe Marco was just the most easily amused person in the world.

Eventually, however, Marco calmed down enough to sputter out a sentence or two.

"You can take Emily to the bathroom," he said in between wheezes, "and I'll get us something." Emily unbuckled herself and climbed out of the car, pretty much running into the building with Jean chasing her after he let her know he was taking her to the bathroom. Marco laughed to himself as he finally got out of his vehicle and walked inside, slowly wandering through the aisles of not-very-good-for-you snack foods that just so happened to be cheap and convenient to get. He ignored those, though (they never were very appetizing to him anyway), and went straight for what he was really looking for that afternoon. He got in line to pay and after he had, Jean and Emily emerged from the family restroom. The former saw what was in his boyfriend's hands, though, and stopped.